MARTINEZ — After more than two years fighting this news organization all the way to the state Supreme Court, the Mt. Diablo Unified School District has finally made public a 2006 internal investigative report regarding former elementary schoolteacher Joseph Martin, who has been convicted of molesting his students.

The report — released on the eve of Martin’s civil trial — paints a complicated picture of what an independent attorney concluded from a school investigation a decade ago. Attorney Mark Williams wrote in the report that no “illegal activity was committed” but also stated there was “potential child abuse.”

The report focused on Martin’s close relationship with one of his fourth-grade students at the time after two teachers and a relative of the boy went to Martin’s principal with concerns. The report also includes secondary accusations of defamation by Martin against one teacher.

The Bay Area News Group first sought the investigative report in late 2013, in an effort to find out what district officials knew about Martin’s behavior at that early stage, years before his eventual arrest. When the district refused to provide it, the news group sued under the state Public Records Act.

Today, the document is at the center of the civil case, with jury selection set to begin Wednesday. The plaintiffs allege that district officials should have viewed the 2006 investigation as “reasonable suspicion” of abuse and reported it to police or Child Protective Services as required by state law. They claim the district’s failure to do so led to the abuse of more boys from 2007 to 2013.

The district claims the report was “ambiguous” and would not have risen to reportable conduct.

A dozen boys sued the district, employees and Martin last year over the alleged lapse in reporting. Martin and the individual district officials have been dismissed from the suit, but the district remains as a defendant and could face substantial damages if found liable.

The cases, criminal and civil, have been unusual from the start. Martin was convicted on 19 molestation counts involving seven boys after two criminal trials and is serving a 12-year state prison sentence. Despite his conviction, attorneys for the school district have argued they plan to defend the teacher’s touching of his students, saying it was used to focus children with attention issues.

A jury found Martin guilty of molestation for fondling the bare chests and nipples of boys.

Last week, Judge Barry Goode ruled the 2006 report and Martin’s conviction admissible in the civil case, so a jury will have the final say on just what the internal probe means.

Two sentences in the 12-page report highlight the controversy surrounding Martin’s behavior: “It should be stressed with some emphasis that no one in this investigation stated that Mr. Martin was engaged in improper behavior with (the boy). However, this report would not be honest and its conclusions not fully supported if I did not report that the circumstances surrounding these allegations did not at least suggest the subject matter of potential child abuse.”

Attorneys on both sides have argued at length in pretrial hearings whether the second sentence rises to the mandatory reporting threshold of “reasonable suspicion” of abuse.

“I don’t see how you can keep this (report) out because the issue is over (whether the school district was notified of a suspected abuse),” Judge Goode concluded.

In spring 2006, at the request of then-Mt. Diablo General Counsel Greg Rolen, Williams took over an investigation from the school principal into allegations against Martin. On April 26, 2006, Williams completed his report.

“The gist of the inquiry by (the relative) was whether Mr. Martin was crossing traditional boundaries between an educator and the educator’s students,” Williams wrote.

Among the allegations in the report:

Williams, in general, downplayed the accusations, saying the boys’ parents sided with Martin, asking the teacher to pay special attention to their son that year because of his father’s serious illness. Williams concluded no allegation or evidence indicated Martin engaged “in any activity that was illegal or that should subject him to administrative action.”

However, he said the principal was correct in giving him restrictions, such as telling him he should keep his door open if alone with a student; that he should encourage female, as well as male, students to engage in extracurricular activities; and to avoid devising skits involving contact between teacher and student.

Williams supported an admonishment of Pate for voicing “unsupported suspicions” of Martin to a non-employee but also argued that Pate’s accusations were not defamatory because she could say her inquiries were “an investigative discussion pursuant to a report of reasonable suspicion of child abuse.”

“This conclusion is further buttressed by the heavy burdens child abuse reporting statutes place on educators who suspect child abuse and the district’s interest in not penalizing those who voice their good faith concerns,” Williams wrote.

Williams never interviewed the boy.

Williams called the 2006 accusations an almost “perfect storm of misunderstanding” and advised stopping the probe because, at the time, the boy’s father was terminally ill. In the end, the boy’s mother died and his father survived and testified during the criminal trial.

The release of this internal report ends one of the longest public records challenges by this newspaper — and possibly in state history.

“Having litigated public records cases for over two decades, I can say without hesitation that this case was one of the most contorted, prolonged, exasperating and ultimately rewarding Public Records Act cases I’ve ever handled,” said Duffy Carolan, Bay Area News Group’s attorney. “That the district fought so long and so hard to keep this information secret only highlights the public’s interest in its disclosure. The paper’s dogged pursuit of the matter is truly commendable.”

The newspaper filed the lawsuit to get the documents in October 2013, before both criminal cases and any lawsuit was filed.